Reasons to embrace grant writing

0:00 Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients. When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research program. Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit. However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

0:40 For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene. Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast. I'm your host Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is a pleasure to be talking with you today. Today I am talking about whether grants are really necessary. As a faculty member, do you really, really need grants? Like really? And I think the short answer to that is no, you don't have to write grants to be a faculty member, but I want to convince you that you should consider incorporating it into your academic journey if it's not already part of your academic journey.

1:39 And for most of you who are listening, because this podcast is really aimed at clinician scientists, you are already writing your grants, this is just what you're doing. And so I'm talking to you, I don't necessarily need to sell you on the fact that grant writing is important, but what I do want to sell you on is why you should enjoy the process, why you shouldn't slog through it, just swinging from opportunity to opportunity in frustration, why you should sit down and think about the benefits that you get from grant writing, and why you should enjoy it.

2:20 I really am here to help you enjoy it, because I think that many times when something feels like drudgery to us, when we feel like, oh my gosh, I have to do this, it just makes it so much harder. And so the question is, how can we reframe our experience so that we enjoy the journey? Because really, at the end of all of this academic career is really the journey, the joy of the journey, and all the other stuff kind of melts away. Like, yeah, there is some personal satisfaction that comes from knowing that, oh, over the course of my career, I've been continuously funded, I've had all these big grants, they've been so awesome, there's that.

3:02 But to be able to say I got all of that and I loved every step of the journey, oh my goodness, that's such a beautiful gift, and I wish you that. I absolutely wish you that. And I will tell you that when I started on my journey, grants to me were just a necessary evil. Like they said I needed to do it, and I was like, sure, there, I wrote the grant, I submitted it, thank you. You can hear the bad attitude and the way I'm even saying it. I mean, it was just one of those things where it was like, well, you said I needed to do it, done. But really, ugh, that kind of energy is not really sustainable. You can only pull out enough energy to write a grant out of like a feeling of obligation.

3:46 You can do that for a two to three month period of writing a grant, but you cannot sustain a career on feeling disdainful about writing grants, or feeling like it's a waste of your time and energy, or feeling like you hate the process. It just is so hard. And anyway, so I started with that kind of attitude, and over time, I've come to love grant writing. I really do. And I think one of the reasons I love grant writing now is because I write about things that I care about. I write about things I want to see change. I write about spaces in which I want to see impact. Writing about the future that I wish to see. And oh my goodness, it's such a powerful experience.

4:27 I love the end of pulling together a proposal because it's like, oh my goodness, imagine if this were done, if this work actually happens, it would be so awesome. And it's such a powerful feeling where it's like, okay, let's not wait. How can we do this now? It's so, so awesome. So anyway, I want to share with you reasons to think about grant writing. And I'm inviting you to think about how the journey can be a pleasant thing for you rather than a treasury that you have to endure. The first thing I want to get out of the way is that grants are necessary for securing funding.

5:10 Yep, you want money to run your research program, then you should apply for grants. And actually, maybe I'll pause and say that, you know, there are some people who are making their research work through philanthropy. There are some people who are finding other ways to get money without necessarily doing the whole application process. And I will say that if that's you, good for you. It's not most people. And for the most part, in today's market, if you're going to move significant pieces of research forward, you are going to have to partner with people who have the money. Now I have known of researchers who are independently wealthy and they fund their own research program.

5:55 I would tell you that that is not the norm. For the most part, if you're going to get funding for a program of study, you really do need to partner with a funding agency. And so the way to money is writing grant proposals. One way to money, but the main way to money is writing grant proposals. And so funding is one of the reasons. I'm just going to get that out of the way, first of all, to get grant money to fund your research program. But I want to say it's not just about the funding or the funding is not just the reason. It's the fact that your work is important and the problem you want to solve absolutely should be solved.

6:37 And lives are going to be transformed when your problem is solved. And it's going to be so amazing. And the downstream effects are going to be incredible. Events are going to be touched by your work. And so your work is absolutely worthy of seeing the light of day. It's absolutely worthy of going forward. Your work needs to be done. And it needs to be done with funding. It needs to be done with money to see your project through. Yeah, you could, you know, spend every night and weekend and waking moment doing this work by yourself for the rest of eternity.

7:19 And you won't have the kind of impact that you could have if you had money to fund people in your program to execute your amazing and incredible ideas. And so your project is absolutely worth seeing the light of day. The impact is going to make is incredible. And therefore your project, your research program is absolutely worthy of funding. And so you should write grants to secure that funding. Okay, that's number one for funding. We've gotten that out of the way. Great. The next thing is research methods. I laugh because when I first started, I had no clue how little I understood about research methods.

8:06 I thought as a clinician, I understood research. I mean, I was always reading these papers, you know, we were dissecting them. We would do journal club. We would say, oh, this is how they did this method. And then they, I mean, I knew what to do. You know how it is where you're a great parent until you actually have children. And it's like, what? I suck at this. Exactly. Okay. I know I keep making these references. I want to be sure to be inclusive. It's just, you know, the thing you thought you knew how to do, you criticize people until you actually started doing it yourself. And you're like, this is hard. I have no idea what to do. And so that's what grants help you do.

8:48 Writing helps you learn research methods. So as a clinician, I was good at clinical stuff. But what I wasn't good at was boiling down this huge clinical monster of a problem into a small enough bite-sized piece that I could address in a research question. I have to tell you how hard that is. Oh my gosh. I feel like I'm still learning it. It is such a challenging task. But doing that is part of your learning to do research and learning to do it well. And so to be honest, your first couple of grants that you submit, especially if you don't have the kind of intense help of a methodologist, they're going to suck.

9:32 Did I just say that? Yes. Now that I'm a reviewer, reviewing other people's grants, I see the same patterns where clinicians are well-meaning. They want to cure the patient today. Don't tell me that I'm just going to fix a finger. I want to cure the whole person today. Therefore, I'm going to do this, and then I'm going to do that, and then everything is going to happen right now. And I'm still guilty of that. I just want to fix a lot of things. But really, if you're going to do it well, you're going to boil this huge problem down into its smallest component pieces, and then you're going to take that tiny piece and answer a question.

10:13 Oh my goodness, the discipline of that is super hard. But the more you write grants, the more you learn to do that. Because time after time and after time again, you get the feedback that this scope is too broad, this scope is too broad. How are they going to do all this? What's the feasibility? And over time, you learn to narrow it down and to pare it down until you really get to a question that you can answer within the timeframe of the grant opportunity and the available funding. And so really, as you submit grants, you grow in research methods. It's one of the ways you grow as a researcher. And I'm speaking specifically to clinicians who mostly do not have research training as part of their experience.

10:58 Yes, you may have done a year or two in your postdoctoral fellowship, but for the most part, you don't get near the amount of training, say, a PhD researcher does. And so to some extent, physicians have an accelerated program of learning facilitated by their clinical knowledge, but you still need to learn the research methods. And so the more you write, the more you grow in your learning. And especially when you're partnering with methodologists, as they're helping you write your grants, or at least you're getting advice from them as you're writing, it does help you grow in research methodology. And that's something worth writing grants for, the benefit of growing as a research methodologist.

11:44 Third reason is changing the way you think. And I alluded to this in the second reason, the learning research methods section. I talked about how as a clinician, especially if your perspective is first the clinician before the researcher, is you're thinking very big picture, like very, very broad strokes. You are not just here about, oh, what cell is affected when blood sugar spikes? What are the signaling pathways activated? As a clinician, you're very big picture. Like, this is a patient who has neuropathy and also has retinopathy and is in danger of losing a foot due to a diabetic foot ulcer.

12:33 You want to answer questions that help the whole patient. And for that reason, you kind of just, you know, smush, that's not a technical term, but you put all these things together and you roll them out in a proposal and you're like, this is what I want to do because I want to fix the patient. And you know what? Research doesn't work well like that. You can't fix the patient in one grant. I mean, maybe over several grants over decades, you can fix the patient, but usually not the first grant, not the second, probably not the third, because if you're asking the question well, you're asking it small enough so you can't answer it all in one question.

13:17 So it changes the way you think because for you to change from your clinician, I want to help the whole patient brain to what question do we need to answer? What's the next logical step in this big thorny problem that we have? It really takes changing the way you think to be able to do that effectively, to be able to do that successfully. And clinicians don't do that well because it's not part of our training. And as you continue to write grants and submit them, it helps you think more critically about what can you realistically do in the next two to three years with this proposal. And it's really helpful to be able to do that.

13:59 The fourth thing is knowledge. And I alluded to this when I did the podcast episode earlier about writing manuscripts. The more you write, the better you understand the field. The first grant, you write a lot of information. But the more you write, the more it becomes clear what the gaps are, what is needed to fill them, where are people working, the more you're able to come to the edge of what is known and to really project into the future of what could be known and how that could change the field. And so it grows your knowledge. You become a very knowledgeable person at the end of writing any grant in any area.

14:43 And ideally, you're taking all that knowledge that you've gained and you're converting, you know, especially what you've written for the significance and innovation into a manuscript for submission because other people need to benefit from your knowledge. But it's incredible how much you have to grow to be able to write well. And so growth in your knowledge is another benefit of writing grants. The fifth thing is growing in your skills. And so, wow, there's so many skills to grow in as a researcher. And again, because of our clinical training, most of what we do is clinical. And so growing in research methodology and research skills, growing in grant writing, growing in writing manuscripts.

15:29 Those are not necessarily things that we know how to do as part of our clinical training. We have to learn them. And writing in a way that's salesy, in the way that's selling your science, writing about something that you haven't yet done, where you're not telling a lie, but you are imagining a future that has not yet happened yet. It really takes skill to be able to do that. And how do you say it within the one page limit or the 30 lines of text limit that you have? It really takes considerable skill that you can't master with just one grant. You can't master with a second.

16:09 It really takes time. And over time, seasoned grant writers, oh my goodness, they write so beautifully. They write so beautifully. They're able to really make you slobber over a piece of work. You're like, I want to fund this person. Give me money. I'm taking money out of my savings to fund this work. I mean, it takes skill to do that. It's not luck. It is skill. It's putting in the reps. It's iterating. It's growing. It's getting feedback. It's doing it again. You grow. And it is amazing. I have to say that it's incredible, the kind of growth that happens.

16:50 You don't recognize it until you start to review other people's grants. And you're like, wow, okay, I'm growing in these skills. And you know, there's always more space to grow too because you don't get all the grants that you apply for. But it is an incredible opportunity to grow in grant writing skills. And overall, it helps you grow in the way you think about your research. And that's really awesome. That's really, really awesome. The sixth thing I want to talk about is it helps you create an umbrella. Now, as scientists, we don't really think of ourselves as employers, though some of us more readily than others. But the reality is the more grant funding you bring into the program, the more people's efforts you're able to fund.

17:36 And to be honest, you're employing people. And many times, you know, there's a disconnect between the grant funding you bring in and the people who are employed to work in your program. The reality is when you are able to find funding for your program, so many people benefit. Graduate students come and they can be part of your umbrella. Medical students can come through, residents, postdoctoral fellows. I mean, there is no limit to the number of people who will come and try to be part of this wonderful ecosystem of grant funding. And it's a beautiful thing because it means your work is moving forward.

18:19 It means instead of you trying to be the only one making the work move forward, you have a whole army of people working alongside you to make your work known. It's so incredible and so awesome. And it is absolutely working and writing grants and submitting them so that you can build an ecosystem where other people thrive. And if you are someone like me who's underrepresented in the academy, it means that people who are naturally drawn to you are able to thrive in the spaces you create because you took the time to grow in the skill of grant writing and you have the courage to submit grants for funding.

19:00 So creating an umbrella is another reason why you should write grants. And then finally, there's the impact. There is the impact. So there's the obvious impact of pursuing a program of study that's going to advance patient care. That's the obvious. I mean, over the time of the work that you do, you really do contribute to the literature. Your work really does begin to become the fabric of the science that we quote. You are able to make impact because of the sustained work you do. You're continuously writing and submitting and refining and responding to feedback and then being funded and going at it again.

19:44 Yes, the impact that comes from your program is going to be amazing. And in the process of making that impact, the impact you make in your own life is going to be incredible. The kind of person you become, someone who doesn't take no for an answer, someone who perseveres, someone who says, I'll do it again. Okay, I'll submit it again. Someone who keeps going despite all the odds. It's who you become. And it is so incredible. There is something about people who've been writing grants for years and years and years. And they're like, yep, I'm putting in the next grant. Like, what, don't you get tired? But they're growing, they're expanding, and it shows. They are just amazing and incredible people.

20:28 That's why we want them as our mentors. They're so awesome. And it's really all this work that they've had to do to keep a program of funding, to keep a program of study going, to keep a research program going, being constantly funded. It takes an amazing amount of skill, patience, foresight to do that. And it's an incredible thing to see yourself growing into that over the course of your career. And finally, that's the impact you make on the people who come into your program. The medical students who didn't have a project until you became the umbrella, where they could do their project. The residents who wanted to get a taste of research, and they could do it because your program was available to them.

21:14 It's the impact in the number of people that you are able to bring in under your umbrella as you are growing as a scientist, you are growing other people as well. And that's really incredible. And I would say of all the reason, to me, this is the favorite one. The fact that there are people who can come alongside you and make impact together with you while also advancing their own careers. Yeah, those are the things I wanted to point out. So number one, funding. Number two, growing in research methods. Number three, changing the way you think as a clinician, really growing to think like a true scientist.

21:55 Knowledge, because you're writing all this stuff and you're growing in knowledge. Developing your skills, especially in skills of grantsmanship, creating an umbrella where other people can come. And impact, the impact you make on your field, the impact you make in your own life, and the impact you make in the lives of others as well. And I will tell you that for all of that, it is worth continuing to write and submit grants to grow your research program, to grow your funding portfolio, and to create the umbrella that the world needs. So I invite you this week to write out for yourself your own reasons why you submit grants. Write out the things that you, the joy, the benefits you've gotten up until now.

22:39 Don't focus on all the grants you haven't gotten. Don't focus on all the things that didn't work. But write about the things that you have benefited from in your grant writing. Just make a list and think about it as a gratitude list. And if you find some unusual ones, I would love you to come share it with our audience. Leave us a voicemail on the clinicianresearcherpodcast.com website. And if your voicemail is selected, it will be played on another episode. We will build an episode out of your podcast voicemail. So please, I invite you to do that today.

23:20 All right. It has been such a pleasure talking with you today. I'm going to thank you again for taking the time to listen, and I look forward to talking with you again the next time. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself. Someone else needs to hear it. So take a minute right now and share it.

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